Basics

To record the CPU and memory activity of an existing process to a file (use sudo for a root process):

psrecord 1330 --log activity.txt

where 1330 is an example of a process ID which you can find with ps or top. You can also use psrecord to start up a process by specifying the command in quotes:

psrecord "hyperion model.rtin model.rtout" --log activity.txt

Plotting

To make a plot of the activity:

psrecord 1330 --plot plot.png

This will produce a plot such as:

You can combine these options to write the activity to a file and make a plot at the same time:

psrecord 1330 --log activity.txt --plot plot.png

Duration and intervals

By default, the monitoring will continue until the process is stopped. You can also specify a maximum duration in seconds:

psrecord 1330 --log activity.txt --duration 10

Finally, the process is polled as often as possible by default, but it is possible to set the time between samples in seconds:

psrecord 1330 --log activity.txt --interval 2

Subprocesses

To include sub-processes in the CPU and memory stats, use:

psrecord 1330 --log activity.txt --include-children